Renascentia
by scratchmarred
Summary: When Salazar tells me I am the Messiah come forth a second time, I incline to agree and so he asks whether he might please cut off my wings. Myrtle’s death triggers a small transformation in Hogwarts’ finest mental wreck.


**Author's Note the First: **the only spoilers in this fic are mentions of how someone picked someone else up from the orphanage, the name of the orphanage caretaker, and also the name of a certain slytherin head of house. None of them play a crucial part in either this story or the HBP and are, as said before, only mentions.

-

**I. The Sleeper Awakes**

His footsteps alone shatter the silence, breaking it in black little shards of the glass that once wove the material infinitum. I do not look up -- not when his whispers lull the shaking remains of the one who has fallen to spell; not when he removes the wand from limp, numb fingers; not when his burning lips come to replace it, the wetness and _warmth_ of his mouth so intimately connected to my childhood fears heralding a Christian hell.

He removes even the smallest layer of it, one by one, and the blood is gone, and my hands are clean. My hands are clean. They should never be clean again.

"Riddle me this…"The blood is sticky on his mouth and chin, and I am now reduced to a pack of sensorial stimuli, I am the living tissue plaguing my lips as he kisses them softly, weakly; as he taints them red, murmuring promises he never intends to hold long enough as to break. "Are we so unlike?"

A pause. He persists, "I assure you we're not. We're the same. We're exactly the same."

Silence still.

And then, "Would I lie to you?"

No, Salazar, never.

Crushed to the floor, in each bone an aching. _Your time will come._

Getting up, because defeat now would be in vain, and one must play hide-and-seek with fortune. Getting up and leaving and covering our tracks, like weasels. Tom and I, we know of such things.

We leave in a haste.

-

_…the monotonous spirit progresses triumphantly through the void, with me at its side. The genius lingers among the shadows. Watching. Waiting. Calling. I can hear its hiss…_

At night, my writing is an endless display of vanity and contrary circumstances. Delicate, almost frail, an uncertain line slashed over the fine white of finer still parchment.

Salazar always whispers in my ear, and it's Tom who listens, Tom who writes.

"It's a game," he tells me, when Tom is far too consumed in his ploys so to mind. "It's a game."

I admit to a wanton degree of curiosity. "Whom against?"

He laughs his fickle laughs and then presses cold lips over my temples. "History."

_-_

Make-believe isn't half as fascinating if it does not comply to a certain realism. And Greek tragedies seldom elude an opening of dread and despair.

We're in a parody, here, now, we're playing at the grieving relatives. I'm the most deplorable actor among the cast, although I've the esteem of anything but.

Myrtle is dead.

Long live Myrtle.

They carry her body away, inert and _ugly_ even in this state, though at least her age and the useless _drama_ of her untimely death should have granted her a saintly aura.

"I shall have to ask that all students please clear the corridor. Accompany your prefects to your dormitories and all shall be well. This… we…there's an explanation. Someone will pay. Someone…" This from our own Wise Man -- Dumbledore, far too shaken to recall that he is no longer the great Auror with God and Merlin alone above him, and that there is an authority to precede his own. Our headmaster is speechless. He plays the part of Pater Familias, and the loss of this one daughter has crippled him into a state of wondrous trepidation.

Everyone around me is the Choir: they scream and sob in one voice, one mind, one emptiness.

"Her parents are Muggles… they're rich, but they won't be able to make it til tomorrow, they live somewhere in the North, I—I… oh Merlin…" Olive Hornby. The two had the occasional row but were doubtlessly as fiercely loyal to one another as ever Hufflepuffs could hope to be. Olive is our Cassandra, she foresees that which Dippet would rather not know, an infallible yet horrifying truth: they have a few more hours to torment themselves with theories of what may have come to pass, a few more hours to try to gain an understanding of why Myrtle is playing pretend and why she chose to be the Corpse.

Myrtle, why couldn't you be a Heroine? Heroines don't die.

"If they're Muggles," – Drusus this time, the Head Boy and born to no wizardry blood himself - "they'll want her watched."

"Who should watch over her?" Dippet, my Lord Father, unwisely you speak without the smallest appeal to discretion. No offers to partake in the private ceremony with our elite company, the Corpse. No one wants her, it's like she were still pretending to be Alive again, ignored as ever.

Drusus must tend to the younger years. The teachers, our nameless Shadows should secure the area. Dippet himself should present a report to the Ministry. Dumbledore has the unenvied task of sharing the delightful news with the rich Muggles parents.

And I…

"I'll watch over her. I know my share about Muggles too." Though I'm not a Muggle. Not a full Muggle, oh no, never just that. If I were a Muggle, I'd be destined to a Muggle's existence, and if I were a wizard, I'd be destined to just as vile a series of things. Hybrids are infinitely better. We make our own destiny.

They excuse themselves swiftly, each going their own way. One Shadow shakes my hand and pats my shoulder and another assures me of my great valour. A third says something of its fondest wishes. I hear naught, but then I see the candles coming to life all around us, and I understand. "Keep them lit until dawns come, that's the way of it. "

Dumbledore takes his leave as well, in the middle of the night, our Wise Man now become The Sorrowful One.

I am alone with the Corpse.

Silence.

Myrtle does her part justice and keeps her silence, though I'm growing considerably tired of her platitude and would instead discuss our brilliant performances.

"Myrtle, you can stop now, come back among the living."

She won't. She was always stubborn like that, or so I vaguely recall, but she's still not a Heroine. My voice is rough, has borrowed a tremble. My eyes sting from the burden of this overexposure, from the untouched darkness all around the candles and their white. Even my ears must suffer from the paucity of proper words, all I hear is the hiss of….of…

"Myrtle, you were fabulous," I insist, because compliments will surely extract some reaction. "Now please wake up for a moment, your every limb must have fallen asleep. The Act's over, wake up, we'll be late for our first class tomorrow if we keep like this."

Myrtle is an insensitive wench, irresponsible to the bone, but apparently utterly devoted to her art; she seems highly prone on skipping our first class and perhaps even those after it for the added touch of realism. My eyes are fire in their own right, their flames befalls my cheeks progressively.

What a Tragedy this is, what a superb Tragedy! But I ruined things, didn't I? The circle does not see completion. I am no Hero, no Knight Errant. I am the Trickster, and so with a smile I look her in the eye and I ask, "Myrtle, am I crying?"

Myrtle doesn't answer.

I think perhaps Myrtle forgot we were only _playing_.

-

_… I have completely overcome the stage of "to do". It is only through an estrangement from action that I may allow myself to think. What I had insofar delegated as "to do" was actually "to defeat". And what Dumbledore doesn't realize is that only by uniting my "to do" with his "to think" will we ever reach the perfection of "to defeat". Dumbledore and I, we're two sides of a universally complete coin. But if I stop "doing"…_

-

"Ah, my thanks for escorting the first years, do come in, and – you're a mite pale, are you quite all right?"

Tom the Butcher nods curtly, and then takes his assigned seat. Tom Riddle's eyes are of a curious grey, the sort of quick silver that brings cold flames to mind and that take all colours. It's all a question of lighting, a sleight of hand. Except it's not hands, it's eyes, but it doesn't matter since Tom thinks this is all unnervingly irrelevant.

Tom scribbles something. Tom answers every question, whenever he can be bothered to pay some mind to his surroundings. Tom is a helpless idiot, and I hope he dies a horrible death.

Even if I will no doubt be there to both see and feel it.

Yet…I am not Tom.

Tom Riddle is a carnal shell that exposes me to a crude physical awareness. Tom Riddle has needs as well as requirements. Tom Riddle is a pain that I would rather be ridded of, but he is also necessary for as long as humanity, even the so-called "enlightened" wizardry world does not look further than flesh and bone.

They call me Tom, though that is not my true name; it is not a reality that can hope to conspire towards my true nature.

Pointless. All of this.

What does it matter if I have looked beyond, crossed this stage, if the others still can't see? Through time I've come to wonder whether I'm the one who is blind. Wonder, but never waver.

"Gods, how this must have tired you," says Laurie Kensington. Kensington, like the park, like the lovely little park with its withering leaves. Parks are the cemeteries of adolescent illusions. I hate Laurie Kensington, but then Tom truly is tired.

"Watching over her throughout the night must have been trying."

No, Tom wants to say, no it wasn't, it was merely vexing.

And I want to add, she wouldn't stop playing pretend at all.

**II. For all which lies beneath…**

_ Dear "S.S", _

_Your recent contributions to our publication have proven most satisfactory. As you likely know, "On the level of Occlumency consciousness in a continuous magical discharge" has attracted a very heated response among several highly placed officials. Rolland Tournoir has requested your permission to expand on your line of thought in a more detailed study he intends to present to the Lord Minister. His letter arrived to my personal household, given your status as an anonymous contributor, but I've taken the liberty to enclose it along with the month's financial compensation for your efforts._

_ I should only hope you'll express an interest in a further collaboration with our institution and that you will not hesitate to approach us with whatever theme and article that you feel could be incorporated in our present structure. _

_ Best of wishes,_

_ Amadeus Haggins, editor and chief of staff_

I fold the paper in two, two halves so cleanly pressed together, and then I wonder why there's a slick print of red coating it.

After all, the blood on my hands has darkened to such an extent, it's now the finest black.

Salazar is pale of face, as befitting the great antagonist of every unequivocally bland detective novel, and he has retained the fine image of some-and-thirty, when that mad Seer of a mistress whose presence he had condoned for only so long had decided it would be wonderfully romantic to end his life in a fit of jealousy.

I know this because Salazar has told me.

I found Salazar between fine books and in dark alleys and darker still corners.

And he found Tom, and he wouldn't let go.

I think perhaps we were both looking. I for proof among a chance assortment of books that could very well have never known another's touch, by the look of them; and he… he had always known he would gain the desired dominance over his flesh and his blood.

"I have so much to tell you," said Tom, forever the innocent, forever trusting. I knew the game well, could accede to the highest standings as yet another unyielding victor to it. I knew what would be offered, I knew what would be asked. But Tom didn't.

And so Salazar brushed an elegant hand over his cheek, and smiled his sweet smile, "Then write it down for me. Write it all down for me."

We write it down, now, write all of it down.

And so Salazar says History shall never win, and Tom agrees.

I still wonder why Salazar taught Myrtle how to play dead.

-

In these earlier hours, we dance a very cautious dance. Dumbledore feigns perfect innocence and well-intended reservation. "Surely he can't have been the one to-"

"There's no actual proof. The creature escaped me, Professor. And if the Headmaster and yourself should agree…I…might have seen wrong," I throw in, half-guarded. Tom mislikes this part immensely, and so he has refused to play it. But I am not Tom, and so I prevail.

"No, Tom, rest your conscience. Your loyalty to your peer and this school is fierce, but… this cannot go unpunished. I'm sorry, Albus, I know that you cared for the boy."

"Headmaster Dippet, I respectfully request additional investigations as to the-" But though he is nodding, Dippet no longer listens. His lips quiver in unspoken formalities: the number of the file, a brief review of his past delinquencies; another report to hand in to the Ministry, and, crowned by their personal negligence, a suitable explanation for murder.

Hagrid bursts into tears.

Dippet breaks his wand into small pieces, and Dumbledore looks away.

Our eyes meet, and Salazar, unseen to them, but always at my side, whispers, "Check mate."

-

Salazar teaches me.

He has denounced Tom as the epitome of uncertainty, as the one failure of an entire lineage bred for perfection, the only one who would not grasp that which is already within his hold, that which by right pertains to him.

This instruction is lengthy and meticulous, and there is only very little time. In spite of this, there are several delays, and Salazar himself procrastinates immensely.

"It's because of him," he says accusingly, and then waves dismissively towards Albus. Albus is not Dumbledore, not the Wise Man, but an image of his younger self, one that Salazar has brought to life and keeps as my company.

"Old blood," he had muttered upon Albus' creation, "old magic." Albus had been adjourned little after Salazar himself had appeared. He was necessary, as much as Salazar was necessary, but the silent agreement between them was that they would never be, the two of them, in the same quarters. It was more than a seething hatred, for Salazar was too vastly indifferent towards everyone and everything in order to sum up the interest. Albus' image mirrored Tom's, an effect of spiritual rejuvenation. He alone was mature and cunning, bearing the face Tom had first seen that delightful day at the orphanage. They were both enamoured with the prospect of what Salazar had to share.

"He's not real," says Salazar now, for once repenting of his creation. "I know he's not real, because I made him, I made him for his knowledge, I made him for his counsel. But he… his presence qualms me now. I wish you would not resort to his words any longer."

I do not answer.

Tonight, when Salazar shall have finished his tutoring, I shall ask Albus to join me for a walk.

-

"A shame about the girl, wasn't it, Riddle?" Terentius Fowles grants me the overdue courtesy of asking for permission to seat himself in the seat opposing mine in the library. I say nothing, but he has always considered Tom to provide him with an indubitably substantial measure of entertainment, and he shall not let his reluctance rob him the chance of seeing things to his end.

Terentius Fowles is fair-haired and dark-eyed. He has the gold of his House in thick curls and the sheer depravity of _our_ House in his look. Tom likes Terentius Fowles. "As you say."

"I hear you're the one who found out about the…ah… "

"About Hagrid." The quill in my hand comes to a stop, it has slashed through paper. When it continues its glorious path in the making of the letter "a", I know Albus guides my hand, and I can sense his breath sliding past my neck as he leans forward. Albus is just as invisible to them, for Salazar willed him so, and what Salazar wants is sacred.

"You can put things right," Albus mentions, off-hand, "tell them everything."

If he knew the same creation he had desired now planned to unmask his crimes, Salazar would have been doubtlessly amused, just as Terentius is, when he removes the quill from Tom's hand and places it aside.

"All right then, wonder snake, stop keeping it all a grand secret. How did it happen? Mind you, tell it true."

Albus' voice brings to mind a small box of stolen trinkets and a wardrobe bursting to life from the gift of fire. "Yes, Tom, tell it true."

"I have nothing to say." Thankfully, Salazar is not here now, and so Tom raises from his seat, leaving much Gryffindor charm behind, in the shape of the befuddled Terentius Fowles. "Please excuse me, I fear I'm a bit under the weather."

**III. Blood will tell**

-

_…I cannot understand why blood has come to haunt so many. It is only in the moment of another's true agony that we ourselves take life anew and know passion at its finest. Blood is an intermediary medium. Blood is pointless, it does not define, but if I must make a claim to blood not my own in order to cover what is indeed mine by right, then so be it…_

-

Whenever I saw Myrtle, she was drowning in her own blood.

She was eleven when I first came upon her. Eleven and newly Sorted, bright-eyed and furious at all those who would contest her place. She didn't belong here, no more than I did, and this truth both humiliated and excited her.

"I'm a princess," she said in conspiratorial whisper, as we all took our seats at the High Table, with Dippet requesting little formality, and letting us all do as we pleased. She'd gone astray from her place among the Hufflepuffs and ended up at the Slytherin table, to the silent horror of my year mates.

"You don't belong here." Matthias was only a fourth year then, but he had the love of orders that only the year to come with entitle him to, in the form of a shiny prefect's badge.

"You heard him! Get out of here!" They picked up the protest soon enough, and soon came the shouts: "Mudblood!"

"_Mudblood_!"

"I say, what _is_ the meaning of this?" Professor Slughorn was well in the epicentre of a rising revolt. He ushered them as best he could, but found little middle ground with roaring third years.

"MUDBLOOD!"

As Salazar would later reveal, there was little propriety in calling attention to one's status during the day's most rewarding meal. "It'll ruin your dessert. And it's hardly as if they can help it, animals that they are. Mudbloods are mudbloods, born and bred as such. You end with them as you would with cattle."

Beef was not dessert. And Myrtle the first year was crying.

"It's not mud," she informed us softly, once she'd summoned a convenient cut over her open palm, the tool of her craft still glittering with remains of black pudding.

"Look!" And she held her bloodied hand over for general inspection. "Look! It's real blood, not mud! It's red, like real blood should be! It's not mud! It's not mud!"

And she slapped her hand over Matthias' face, red-red print engulfing his cheek, "It's not mud!"

It occurred to me, that night, when the incident had been long overcome and when there was no more talk of all things new and of shining adventure in the days to come – it occurred to me, then, that they that all my distinguished trueborn peers had cowered in front of this striking realization.

-

_… Mrs Cole warned, "Tom, do them any small kindness and they shall do you one as well. You are all brothers here, spare yourselves any harm." But I wanted them. Have always wanted them, and the small kitchens of the orphanage would have hosted our nuptials – I would have torn their lying tongues out, clawed at their eyes, ripped open their flesh. I would have been the most insatiable of lovers. I would have raped their bodies and made an art of their pain._

_There is no more intimate possession of another than his death at your hands._

_They were my "brothers", and I would have loved them all in their deaths. How odd that I should be inclined to an incestuous obsession…_

-

Cuddled in her velvet robes, blood all over her thighs, and then some on her hands, the signs of her shameful explorations. She had likely tripped on the doorstep of the boys' bathroom – there was only so much light at three o'clock in the night – but she was adamant that she had in truth collapsed and was far too weak to rise.

"Riddle- _Tom_, I'm really rather sorry you have to witness this. But maybe it's better that you've come, you can bear testimony to my last wishes. I'm dying, you see. I think… I think I shall bleed to death." The blood between her legs was dark and thick. It had spread over her nightgown in a disgusting layer. "S-see? Oh please don't worry, it's all right… it, it doesn't hurt. Actually, I think I just might be a heroine at heart, since it probably does hurt quite a lot, only I'm being terribly brave – I _am_ brave, aren't I, Tom?"

"Myrtle, that's-" But how to tell her? I was no woman to know such things. That is, I knew why it had come to pass, I knew this would bear monthly repeating. But I could not explain it to a thirteen year-old girl quite intent on dying.

"No, you don't have to say it. I know you're thinking: I'm the same Myrtle that everyone mocks, but I'm so brave and so beautiful, even though I'm dying. Oh, but won't they regret having been so mean to me once I'm dead! Oh, Tom, I can almost feel the blackness taking me, death, it's so simple, I… and I _am_ beautiful, aren't I?"

"Myrtle," I managed after a while, ever the pragmatic even as I shredded the expensive cloth of her sleeve and bundled the remains together. "You're an ugly wench and, unfortunately, you're not even dying. So shut up and strap these to your – Gods, I can't believe I'm saying this- look, can't you see your Prefect? I'm not the one who should be telling you-"

"What do you mean I'm not dying?" She came to her feet in the sort of hasty revival that would have made for much Christian shame, all past "dizziness" and "blackness" seemingly forgotten. "What do you know about it, anyway? If I say I'm dying, then I'm dying! I am! You can't make me live, I'm dying, and I'm being brave, and you're just so maliciously stupid, Riddle!"

She fled in a rage, leaving behind a very small stain on well-polished marble. The blood was darker, now, but still not mud.

-

_…when I was young, I used to smile for silvers._

_He placed a load of them in my greedy, feverish hands, and he unlaced my chemise, he kissed my closed eyes, and he said, "Smile for me."_

_Coins can be worthless._

-

I smelled it first. I always would, although the sight of it was what usually brought her to mind. When it came to Myrtle, even inertia and gravity seemed to act in the most theatrical of ways -- such an intricate design the trail of blood left, curving on the line of her thigh, eating at the folds of her thick white skirt.

"You've forgot yourself again, Myrtle," I said hastily, with just a hint of laughter, because she was either amusing or tragic, the perfect puppet in our endless Greek play. But then I could see her dishevelled chemise, the lacing of her bodice that had come undone, the comely blush to her cheeks, the bruised lips.

"Myrtle…? Shouldn't you go to the Infirmary? It's not natural that you should lose this much blood. It's…not natural."

She smiled to me silently, though she wouldn't stop crying.

Smiled.

Laughed.

Smiled again.

"It's all right, Tom. It's all right, it was worth it, it _is_ worth it, all of it. Claudia Hayworth does it every single day, well, almost every day…" Softer still. " And she hasn't had a zip since when she first… and she's got the perfect figure…"

She couldn't carry on.

Myrtle always cries until her eyes are even uglier than their usual grotesque forms: puffed up, red and dull. She was so ugly then that, for a moment, this ugliness made her beautiful. An ugly-but-beautiful little girl that some fellow had made a woman of because of the size of her bosom and a few minutes' worth of hopeless romanticism between heavy pants.

I wondered whether he had had the decency to lie to her convincingly, whether he had woven her the fine tales of her inexistent beauty. Likely not.

Now she wept not for the cruelty of the act itself, for that would have been entirely too much in the human nature; neither did she weep for some vague sense of redemption; and her tears would never be for her innocence lost and never explored. She cried her shame.

One chance- one opportunity – if I had – again and again, round and round—

Time never stands still.

But if it did, I would say the same thing, and then I'd still stand to be the first and one and only sacrifice to her dignity.

"If I were you, I'd climb all the way to the high tower, the Astronomy one, because it's always open. I'd climb and climb and climb, and then I'd throw myself off, knowing they'll remember and talk far more of the mass of blood and bones on the pavement than they will ever have had of me."

And then I said, "If I were you, if I were this pathetic, this disgusting, this bloody weak…if I were you, I'd kill myself."

She slapped me.

-

_…but isn't mediocrity an even greater curse than destruction?_

-

They tell me to please keep the candles lit until dawn. There is no blood now, and yet she's dead. How majestic.

"You're not dead, you bloody tart, you're not dead! I didn't will you dead, I didn't- I – didn't…" Albus passes by, a pensive look to unearthly features.

"I'm watching her," I inform him, as he knees by my side, placing a hand on my head in a vague and ridiculous imitation of the traditional offer of shelter. I do not argue, and simply heed his unspoken advice. "Rest now."

"But I have to watch her."

He sighs. "Then don't close your eyes."

His hand is magic in my hair, not the broken, dead sparkles of the wizardry fires, not the elegant act of voluntary creation. It's a different magic altogether, all the more real, perhaps, in the absence of a wand.

"I didn't know whether I wanted this." The confession breaks me.

"I know."

"But it had to be done." A pause. He will never approve, will he? So good to have him here, however. So good to embrace his touch. So good to… "Salazar did this. To her. To me. Did I want this?" I wave my hand and point towards _her_ "Did I want _this_?"

"It'll all be over soon. Trust me, we'll all put things right." Albus will not deign an answer. Tom is such a foolish little child, he reckons. Tom should live on and suffer, he reckons.

But I am not Tom. And so because he has an understanding of this simple fact, he would assure me of everything and anything. "Would I lie to you?"

No, Albus, never.

**IV. That which they would will undone…**

I had a dream once, have I told you?

It only just verged on respectable.

I said to it, "Why now?"

And death laughed at me, as always it would, "And why not?"

I do not know when death took his shape and his laughter, and the low glint to his eyes. I do not know when he tired of our masquerade.

When Salazar tells me I am the Messiah come forth a second time, I incline to agree and so he asks whether he might please cut off my wings.

"To make you holy," he says, once there's blood on my half-parted lips, once more of it, soaking and tearing at the insides of my lungs – pleura, three layers, the twisting membrane- makes a hiss of even this last attempt at courtesy. I never thank him, though the rule of thumb is not beyond my comprehension: Fall in order to be Free. Look in the mirror, we all yearn to be E-V-I-L.

We sink into sin, hand in hand, together on this unholy path. But I am not Tom, and so Tom hesitates to pay the price, Tom would will it undone. Tom begs. "Oh God, stop it – stop it – STOP IT! I beseech you to… to…to stop…to stop-"

_ …me. _

"Can you order…"

_ …me to let go? _

"Please."

Demon. Fiend. Obscenity.

Raise the wagers, Tom. But Tom can't. Only I can produce the miracle, and I have aborted this perfect child: Tom is no longer a part of me, Tom is… worthless.

"Master…"

Salazar is merciless ."Am I truly your Master?"

"Please." This image his eyes would summon, this beautiful and young and unbleshimed face, it's cold. A truth to never be questioned, if always detested. It's cold.

"A Master has Orders. Orders need be heeded." Tom understands. Tom has always had a unique understanding of such things.

…_speak_…

"You'll obey, won't you?" The forsaken promise, Salazar whispering in Tom's ear.

…_immortal_…

Always. He would always obey, of this much he made certain.

Tom likes to think he never really had a choice. Salazar and I, we know better.

…_silence_.

When Tom wakes up, they tell him Myrtle is dead, and that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

-

_Mirror._

_To look. To watch. To reflect. To follow._

_Mirror._

_They'd written his name in a mirror._

_He'd watch and follow them forever._

_Such was the style of it._

-

"You've been spending quite a bit of time in the library as of late." Drusus' expression boded the ill omens of an awkward moment. He had been pursuing Tom for the better part of the day, and though he would generally have shortened the hunt, Tom was averse to the predictability of that exchange. "Yes."

"Well, you've picked a handful here, let me help you carry them to your table." He took the books without further word, and Tom knew better than to discourage him from the action. Drusus fancied him, he knew. Drusus fancied everyone, of course, but him in particular.

" "On Genealogical Traits and Transmittable Magical Attributes Throughout the Lineage"? "The Great Houses, Past and Present"? "Of Blood and Silver"?" He frowned, if only mildly. "Tom, what's this all about? Are you trying to-"

But he did not need to ask, and he did not need the verbalization of an answer that he could perceive with the smallest glance. And Tom would hide nothing, for this would not at all serve his purpose. They took the table to the window, sunlight washing over the aged prints.

"You're trying to find your family in there," Drusus contemplated. "Tom, I don't know whether this is the time and place to say this, then, but I thought… well… I thought…"

"You're right," said the Tom of then, plunging into his reading material, searching the pages with a ravenous hunger, "this isn't the time at all."

The Tom of then hadn't known a thing, but I had and do, and so I keep Drusus waiting. We found Salazar that way, and he loved us. He loved Tom, called him by his true name, a mere memory – an apparition- bestowing his blessing upon his one true heir.

"I left behind more than my writings, " Salazar acknowledges, once he reigns over Tom with the authority of thousands, "I left behind my essence."

Salazar accompanies Tom ever since, and Albus came along as well.

"You need him, "said our instructor, and it was I who nodded, for I understood. We needed Albus, and Salazar had the memory, my memories, from which to recreate him.

-

It's Drusus I see once I have completed my unenviable task, once Myrtle has been watched and dawns have nearly crept upon us. He intrudes upon us, Myrtle and I, but he is positively unhinged by his relief at finding himself not at all alone.

"I couldn't sleep knowing she was here," he chances, pacing forward, a ghost of a man, troubled by his own visions of death. Good, kind Myrtle, how well she plays her part. "I tried praying for her, but…I couldn't feel God listening."

Salazar listens to me. Our divine Head Boy would pick me up from where I stand, where even Albus has abandoned me. His interest is piqued, has been so since the moment when I offered my services. Tom finds himself assailed by a familiar coldness, a thorough lack of sympathy that only Drusus' concerned glances can evoke in him. Salazar has taught Tom well, and so Tom knows how to look beyond those who would care for him.

And Drusus cares. "Why are you doing this?"

But isn't the answer painstakingly obvious? "Because Claudia Hayworth has the perfect figure."

"No, she doesn't."

The irony of things.

-

The creature is beauty at its most perfect, wild and incontrollable, with a passion that would not be diverted, a thirst that would never be quenched. It does not understand reason, it does not understand morality, it only connects to the trivial, peripheral obsessions of conquest.

"It's yours," Salazar conveys through a few hisses. They would only speak the tongue here, and the creature's submission is only the stronger for this small compromise. "I've only to give it the order."

Tom loves Salazar, he is everything Tom has. And so it's in the name of love that he tells it true, as Albus has always asked of him, "Sometimes I hate you."

"Of course you do. After all, are we so unlike?" Salazar has repaid his cruelty in kind.

Mirror.

To this, to that, to the other.

One word.

Mirror.

What can one word do?

Salazar laughs and then he pets the creature, and he hisses in my ear, "Kill".

**V. Repent, oh Satan, of the fruit of your work…**

Can you feel it?

Spider's web, the finest lacing.

Can you look away?

Can you mend it?

_Can you tear it all apart?_

Shaky rip and white strips, purest silk now devastated. Silver thread woven in at the very ends of it, coming untied, hanging in the air. Hangings. They hung despair and blood pearls on that silver thread, and there it would linger, there it would stay. White encompasses such obscenity that one could barely fathom.

Cherish the truth. Rip the pretence.

Rip the cloth apart. Gone be the shining armour. Seek the champion somewhere else.

Rip the silver threading. Don't let any questions hang.

Rip the white off. No more purity here.

Rip it - and pray.

Can you close your eyes?

Tears sting and tears are salty.

Can you will it undone?

Can you hide it?

Hide it….

Hide…

Sometimes it hurts more not to cry. "Myrtle, am I crying?"

-

_…those who wish to know me must make a pact with me…_

-

"We're so alike." But Salazar sounds as deep in misery as I am; he calls upon the creature to lick my hands free of the white threads that I have torn. We're in Neverland again, we're in the dark-dark-dark cave, and the creature welcomes us into its abode.

"Your palace, my master." Salazar is silent. I do not know from where it is that he produces the knife, why he would make no use of the wand that lies perfectly still within his possession. He is a wizard in mind, but a beast at heart, and so when I cry again - "YOU DID THIS! I HATE YOU FOR DOING THIS! FOR FORCING ME TO DO THIS!" – he pays me no mind.

Tom's right hand is caught, flesh severed, blood… Salazar thrusts it deep, thrusts it so that it hurts. "Blood will tell," he says very softly, very sincerely.

We drawn in this blood that we share in eternity.

In the end all I say is, "It's not mud."

I never see Salazar again.

**VI. Domestication**

**-**

_…Dumbledore, if my weakness lies in change, then yours does in constancy. I am writing and rewriting my past in order to avoid a common destiny. I am trying to web it, to shred it apart. Because I can't not think of it. And ignoring it would be far too weak and too tempting. In the end, my future will overshadow my heritage, and in its place will only remain the print of this small deceit. My blood is meaningless, but my actions are not…_

-

I accost her at Hogsmeade, where she would see to her trade behind the well-chosen rags that detract from what would be her air of mystery. She looks starved and there's a feverish love for firewhiskey encrypted in the powerful swipe of her hand as she takes the coins and my supposed undying gratitude.

"Yes, yes, you've come to the right place… best Seer this side of the ocean, trust you me, just give me your hand, yes, oh, what a handsome gentleman I have here, oh yes! No, dear, the other one, pray-" But she paused, indefinitely, her eyes searching over Tom's palm.

"Trueborn blood," she says uncertainly, "I can smell it."

"And?" Still nothing. "What do you see, witch? Wasn't that your great art? That you could See? Well, then, tell me. What do you see?"

She can't. "I don't understand."

"Why? Tell me. You have to tell me. What's to be my fortune, hmm? What's there, written down since the fateful day when I was born?" She's too astonished, as she still keeps hold oh the hand, to sustain her anger, or any sort of meagre response. "Why won't you tell me? Tell me! Can't you? Why won't you? Tell me! Tell me!"

"But there's nothing to tell. There's…nothing there."

My hands were the butcher's earliest testimony to his sickening craft: meat of own making drenched in dried blood. I am a butcher of destinies, I have no destiny of my own to keep, no destiny to heed.

"I have no destiny," I say to her, long after it ceases to matter, when the cuts themselves have cleaned and grown no more than shallow, faded traces. "I must make my own."

_-_

_…I have come to see that the risk, the possibility of dying is somehow more vital than the fear of death. Violence, now herein lies the supreme freedom of history…_

_-_

_…in the end, the Hat was none the wiser. "Slytherin," it announced after far too much consideration, to shallow applauses and discrete smiles exchanged between my peers._

_Immortality is not a purpose to be pursued as much as it is an endless riddle. Cicero was at a loss for words. Is utility a greater priority than morality? By placing me in an environment where this question is constantly encouraged and where morality isn't entirely valued, the Hat damned me to a life beyond death…_

_…I am neither the Devil nor the Christ. I am what I am. My actions reflect a transcendental order – what else can I do but obey?_

_-_

Tom has Fallen from Grace, but my wings linger ad infinitum, unseen, untouched, unwanted. The Sleeper awakes to a truth he would shatter like so much glass; he has no strength, no true power save for ignorance and bleeding hands.

You are Tom Riddle, golden boy extraordinaire, except you're not fair-haired in the slightest, and everything extraordinary about you seems to have faded into an oblivion of very distant, lost and best forgotten memories.

You're at a crossroad, Tom, Tom Marvolo Riddle. You're right where he abandoned you, the exact same place where you parted ways with Salazar, because you're such a hopeless idealist at heart, and it's so damnably sentimental of you. At least if you're sentimental you've still a heart.

Albus is leaning towards you, pale lips inviting a closer inspection, willing it be, but not quite. "Tell the truth, recreate yourself. Renascentia," he offers delightedly, and he smiles, "a new beginning. A new path. The opportunity to return whenever you like, to put things right. Tell the truth and put things right."

You are hesitant, but kiss the surface nonetheless, only to find it so abominably cold. His eyes too are a curious grey, the sort of quick silver that remind of cold flames and that take all colours… grey eyes steal colours, grey eyes stole the warmth.

"Immortality," he continues unperturbed, because he's no stranger to the cold and is therefore unaffected. "Immortality and the will to go on are the only answer. Would I lie to you? Tom? Tom?"

It only takes a moment of waver, one accidental act of voyeurism, and you have your answer.

You are not Tom, I am Tom. There is no other I than myself. There is only one Tom Riddle, immaterial and corporeal alike. There is only one Tom.

Tom. Tom Riddle, Tom the Butcher. Wake up. Wake up, Tom, Tom Riddle. Wake the fuck up and return among the fully living, Tom. That's it. That's better. Smile, now, smile and say goodbye. Say goodbye to Albus, say hullo to the world, say hullo and then Aveda Kadevra, say hullo and then die.

Or live, and have the bloody guts to answer.

Live.

Live forever.

Live…

Can Tom live once Myrtle is dead?

Salazar once answered, "If Myrtle is dead, Tom can live forever and ever and ever…"

"Would I lie to you?" Albus repeats, more for the sake of some wanton tradition that demands an absurd finale to the most ridiculous of overtures.

"Look at me. Tom…? Would I?"

"I killed Myrtle."

"No, you didn't, Salazar-"

"I killed Salazar as well, I refused to be him."

"He deserved to die. Now that he's no longer, you can return to your original—"

"And I'm killing you too."

Fear, now. Is this the man who spoke to me of the miracle of Hogwarts, years ago? No. Not at all. "No, Tom, you don't have to – Tom, listen to me, we can somehow get out of this muddle. Listen to me, look at me! If only you did as told, we could return to that moment in the past, we could make amends. Assume one error, Tom, all will be forgiven, you needn't go on like this! We can put things right!"

"But I don't want to put things right."

"Tom, trust me, listen to me, all shall be will. "Albus is sneering, and his grimace is as cold as his lips were when I touched them, as Salazar had been, and they both have EYES OF A CURIOUS GREY, THAT SORT OF QUICK SILVER…

"Would I lie to you?"

_ Myrtle is dead._

_ Tom is weak and foolish and glorious all the same, and when he presses her eyelids shut – because she kept staring, and that wasn't the done thing at all – he breaks in the light of all those damned candles. _

_ "You're dead now, Myrtle. But… it shouldn't matter. It's probably for the better. No, it is for the better. You'll see. Would I lie to you?"_

_ Liar._

_ She never did answer to liars. _

"Would I lie to you?" Albus is screaming now, only it's not Albus, it's Salazar, except it could never be him, and I know who he is – and I laugh – and --- and… and…

"Yes."

Albus is Salazar, and they are both Tom once I walk away from the mirror.

**VII. Renascentia**

Shock. Relief. Despair.

The public farewell undergoes a tragic climax wherein everyone theatrically wipes a single tear from their eyes and confesses their undying love for the wretched spoiled girl, Myrtle. Dumbledore urges the ceremony to a much delayed close, and Hagrid, behind him still can't bear to look at as much as her picture.

Claudia Heyworth sacrifices a white rose to the noble cause, although whether she transfigured it or actually acquired it, she fails to mention. "The poor darling, I wonder why they dragged him here, out of his leash."

"Takes courage to say you aren't guilty, even when everything else points at you," says Domitius, her cousin, and far less kind. He mumbles a 'Requiescat in pacem' , making way for the wailing Hufflepuffs, who all feel the need to deliver yellow daffodils while wearing their cloth of mourning, in the greatest testimony of House virtue. Myrtle would have been thrilled.

"Maybe it's from shock. I've read about something of the sort – whenever you can't cope with something you've done, you delegate the guilt on someone else. Can be anything, from a real person, to a pet. You can even create your own alter egos, some fragments of your imagination who you can blame. It doesn't matter as long as you don't accept your own fault. It's not a purposeful act, it's a defence mechanism. I do think it's what Hagrid's been at, because he must feel so guilty about it, he can't bear to think he played such a fundamental part in her death."

"Claudia, you're as mad as a hatter."

Laughter. "No, I am not! It makes perfect sense! Tom – Tom. aren't you going to say anything? Tom!"

"Aragog was real," is my sole contribution.

When I pass by Drusus, I see him clutch his rosary, and I hear him utter my name in his prayers.

They leave the crown of flowers and her picture in the Great Hall for a number of days, days spawned from misery.

This pious determination dazzles me, though perhaps because it escapes my understanding.

Men are destined to die ad infinitum. Men will die, more of the same will be born in their stead. What is murder if not a stealthy acceleration of what shall rightfully pass? I am not Tom the Butcher, the one who would play at being God and lower his eyes from the glory of his deeds.

I have murdered time, and to replace it I would weave life eternal.

I am the one true ruler of all that is to come, of all that has been.

I do not heed unwritten commands, I make my own fortune, I crush the destiny of others.

I am not Salazar, who would summon destruction for his cause and for all to despair.

I am not Albus, whose hypocritical acceptance of immorality would live and let live rather than recreate.

I am not Tom.

I am Lord Voldemort.

-

**Author's Note the Second: **

Done.  
Well, that was… long. Again. And odd. Again. And possibly stupid. scratch the "possibly". In either case, I'm both thrilled and not quite with how it turned out. There was far more into the Claudia-Myrtle-Tom-Drusus thing, but I decided that enough _was_ enough, and this turned into far too much of a Myrtle-centered piece, in any case.

It also felt awkward and kinda Deus ex Machina for Claudia to explain the alter ego syndrome like that, but I felt I owed readers at least _some_ vague resemblance of an explanation. I don't know when and where and if I'll upload this. no longer allows dashes, I've been told, and I'm kinda dependent of those. Oh well.

My thanks to all those who've bothered to read, and sorry for making this all so fuzzy!


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